On January 30, 1985, 24-year-old Sharla Spangler was found shot to death in Columbus, Ohio. Her body was discovered under a semi-trailer in a parking lot at the corner of Dublin Granville Road and Hamilton Road. Sharla had last been seen leaving the Gold Fox Lounge in Gahanna, where she worked as an exotic dancer. The night she disappeared, her car was found running in the parking lot of the lounge, with her purse inside.
These circumstances indicated foul play, but the case went cold for more than three decades.
In July 2015, a breakthrough came when Douglas Krumlauf was arrested in Knox County on an unrelated domestic violence charge. His fingerprints were subsequently entered into a law enforcement database, where they were matched with evidence collected from the scene of Sharla Spangler's murder. Following this discovery, Columbus Police Cold Case detectives worked to build a case against Krumlauf, and by 2017, he was indicted for aggravated murder by a grand jury. Krumlauf was subsequently arrested while undergoing treatment at a Columbus hospital.
Sharla's murder had gone unsolved for over 32 years, until the renewed investigation led to charges being filed against Krumlauf. He was living a seemingly quiet life in Knox County, where he ran a tile and flooring business. The community was reportedly shocked by the news of his involvement in a cold case that had haunted Columbus for decades. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Knox County Sheriff’s Office collaborated with the Columbus Police Department to bring about this long-awaited development in the case, but the trial faced multiple delays due to various challenges.
